We chat about the Karp x Fink interview at Davos, the humiliation ritual of making Adam Tooze sit on a panel about how batteries are a Chinese threat to America, how an administrative rule change at the EPA about the (non-)value of life in regulatory cost-benefit analysis will be a major accelerant for the American Empire of Blood and Oil — plus a forbidden riff. ••• Trump’s E.P.A. Has Put a Value on Human Life: Zero Dollars https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/climate/epa-human-life-value.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We chat with Ciara Keegan and Ilana Marcucci-Morris from the National Union of Healthcare Workers about their ongoing contract dispute with Kaiser Permamente over the use and role of AI in healthcare, especially mental and behavioural health. We discuss the impacts of AI on labor conditions and patient care in giant hospital systems like Kaiser — plus the ways Kaiser wants to leave the door open for deeper integration of AI and replacement of healthcare providers. ••• Kaiser, Don't Deny | NUHW https://kaiserdontdeny.org/ ••• Will AI Replace Your Therapist? Kaiser Won’t Say No https://www.kqed.org/science/1999553/will-ai-replace-your-therapist-kaiser-wont-say-no ••• Therapists went on a hunger strike to protest 'assembly line' conditions and the automation of mental healthcare https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/therapists-went-on-a-hunger-strike Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Ed returns from his annual trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. We learn about the hottest new trends and devices hitting the market. Big this year: chatbot wrappers, making everything into phone, unnecessary and dysfunctional “AI-powered” features, plus the mass infantilization of humanity under the guise of frictionless convenience. ••• In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing https://www.thecut.com/article/brooding-friction-maxxing-new-years-2026-resolution.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We’re joined yet again by Aaron Benanav to chat about his essays Beyond Capitalism. In this episode we discuss what it means to lay out concrete models for an alternative world—ones that are not overstructured as blueprints, but also not insubstantial as visions. We then detail the political economic foundations and institutional framework for building a different kind of society. ••• Beyond Capitalism Part 1 & 2 | Aaron Benanav https://www.aaronbenanav.com/papers ••• Capricon | Chicago Science Fiction Convention https://capricon.org/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We offer projections for the year to come in tech. What might happen with our big beautiful bubble of overinflated assets, overinvested infrastructure, and overhyped technology? Plus, we speculate about what if we did bloodsport, but for billionaires? Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We’re joined by Aaron Benanav to get into his magisterial essays laying out a vision of society beyond capitalism. In part 1 of our conversation, we lay out his incisive analysis of how capitalism is a powerful system built on the obsessive, relentless optimization of one criteria: production for profit maximization. All other criteria are subordinated to this logic to the detriment of all priorities, values, or goals that we could pursue. The failures of previous alternatives to capitalism can be traced to a failure to change the goals, not just the tools of the system. Any real alternative must go beyond simply swapping in new means — the ways we achieve the optimization of economic efficiency — while maintaining the same purpose. They must change the ends of the system: from one criterion to rule them all to the flourishing of a multi-criterial economy. ••• Beyond Capitalism Part 1 & 2 | Aaron Benanav https://www.aaronbenanav.com/papers Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We go through a number of moral panics about technology — vaping in schools,porn consumption online, social media use by teens — that are boiling over right now. In each of these cases, real problems have been identified and real policies have been implemented, while their real causes and concerns have been ignored. Instead, the critique of technology is used as a trojan horse for ramping up regressive forms of social paternalism and moral conservatism, which set strict boundaries and burdens on users, rather than producers. ••• Vaping Is ‘Everywhere’ in Schools—Sparking a Bathroom Surveillance Boom https://www.wired.com/story/vaping-surveillance-school-bathrooms/ ••• Half of the US Now Requires You to Upload Your ID or Scan Your Face to Watch Porn https://www.404media.co/missouri-age-verification-law-porn-id-check-vpns/ ••• Why Tech Moral Panic Matters https://www.hdavidsessions.com/p/why-tech-moral-panic-matters ••• Australia's social media ban for under-16s starts today. Here is what you should know https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-10/australias-social-media-ban-for-under-16s-starts-today/106119800 Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

After discussing the Council of Neo-Nicaea — but like, what if Jesus was an AI? — we then discuss an incredibly harrowing story of abusive practices at Alpha School, charter schools structured around AI authoritarianism where personalized learning software enact a cruel regimes of punishing metrics, where any humanity is replaced by the cold logic of optimization, where kids are indoctrinated early into the harsh reality of a control society. ••• Parents Fell in Love With Alpha School’s Promise. Then They Wanted Out https://www.wired.com/story/ai-teacher-inside-alpha-school/ ••• Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We dig into a new interview with Alex Karp as part of his ongoing Crash Out Tour and learn about the paranoid delusions of a man being sacrificed by the new pagans of a global woke religion — all while his own family won’t talk with him. If you spend enough time targeting individuals, eventually you too will become a targeted individual. ••• Alex Karp Goes to War https://www.wired.com/story/alex-karp-goes-to-war-palantir-big-interview/ ••• Moira Weigel — Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes-to-the-frankfurt-school/ ••• Michael Burry launches newsletter to lay out his AI bubble views after deregistering hedge fund https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/24/michael-burry-launches-newsletter-to-lay-out-his-ai-bubble-views-after-deregistering-hedge-fund.html Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

We chat with Becca Monteleone — author of The Double Bind of Disability: How Medical Technology Shapes Bodily Authority — about the critical intersection of disability and technology. Among many things, we get into the politics of how knowledge about the effects, experiences, and treatments for disability are produced, who has the authority to produce that knowledge, and who must be compliant to the power of that knowledge. ••• The Double Bind of Disability How Medical Technology Shapes Bodily Authority | Rebecca Monteleone https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517917685/the-double-bind-of-disability/ Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)

Fresh off the New Luddism conference and Luddite Tribunal in New York City, we talk shit about gamerism and the tough solutions required, then get into the deeply sinophobic China envy that motivates the liberal wonks and prevents them from embracing the light of Luddism. Standing Plugs: ••• Order Jathan’s new book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520398078/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite ••• Subscribe to Ed’s substack: https://substack.com/@thetechbubble ••• Subscribe to TMK on patreon for premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (bsky.app/profile/jathansadowski.com) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.x.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (bsky.app/profile/jebr.bsky.social)